Spectro Scientific Blog

Introduction 

Extending lubricant condition monitoring programs to include grease analysis

Onsite oil analysis is an effective tool to quickly analyze samples and optimize maintenance activities. As part of a comprehensive condition based maintenance program (CBM), oil analysis proves to be an effective tool to compliment other diagnostic technologies like vibration analysis, infrared thermography and ultrasound technology. However, when the equipment is grease lubricated, this important Lubrication monitoring step is often overlooked.

Introduction 

Downtime for critical equipment is costly in terms of dollar expense, productivity and human lives. Oil analysis is one of the most important and reliable techniques to keep these assets up and running.

Ametek Spectro Scientific and Grabner Instruments recently released Fluid Management Academy, an online learning management system offering courses for Spectro Scientific and Grabner Instruments’ products and software.

In a recent plant reliability survey, between 60 to 70% of industrial facilities consider oil analysis an important part of their reliability programs[1]. Oil analysis gives a snapshot of machinery health, preventing unnecessary oil changes and assisting in predicting equipment failures. This paper will take a detailed look into using data to decrease maintenance costs and increase the bottom line. Being able to extend oil drains or even shorten them to eliminate failures, can be an easy way to reduce maintenance costs, but data must be available that allows for making those decisions. This paper will address the role of key performance indicators (KPI’s) in predictive maintenance, how to gather useful data that aligns with KPI’s and review a few case studies where on-site labs were able to use data to take advantage of warranty periods, justify keeping assets after warranty and extend oil drains to reduce oil consumption.

The Beginner's Guide to Trending Parameters for Machinery Wear on the LaserNet 200 Series

Establishing alarm limits and condemnation levels for large machinery wear particles is a common topic discussed among reliability professionals. Equipment manufacturers are often not forthcoming with this information since each piece of equipment potentially generates wear at a different rate.  Trending and monitoring deviations from trends is the recommended way for developing alarm limits and condemnation levels on the component. As part of the MiniLab system, the LaserNet 200 Series is a powerful tool to trend particle counts, classify wear particles and monitor ferrous debris levels.

Measuring the Viscosity of an Oil

Viscosity is the measurement of an oil’s resistance to flow.  Typically, we can expect viscosity to decrease with a temperature increase, and increase with a temperature decrease. Viscosity and temperature are considered to be inversely proportional. In oil analysis, viscosity is commonly measured using kinematic viscometers and reported in centistokes (cSt). Viscosity can also be measured using absolute (dynamic) viscosity techniques and reported in centipoise.  Absolute techniques typically use rotational viscometers, whereas kinematic techniques will commonly use flow viscometers dependent on gravity.  The two techniques are differentiated by fluid density.

Spectro Scientific is proud to present our "Oil Analysis Fundamentals Course" presented in partnership with Noria Corporation. The Oil Analysis Fundamentals course provides comprehensive information regarding lubricant analysis and its critical role in increasing machinery life and uptime.